Leaving the television images of gunships bombing the Sudanese capital Khartoum for the cacophony of William Kentridge’s The Head & The Load at the Johannesburg Theatre was a surreal experience.
There is a moment when the words “The Zeppelin is over Khartoum” flash onto the theatre’s screen, referring to the 1917 flight of what was nicknamed “The Africa Ship” on a resupply mission to troops stranded in Germany’s East African colony. At that moment, today’s bombing and the horror experienced by Africans in World War 1 come together vividly.
At a superficial level, today’s war is nothing more than a shoot-out between Sudan’s de facto leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF’s) Gen Hamdan Dagalo.
Not so long ago we celebrated the courage of millions of Sudanese who took to peaceful demonstrations to oust, in April 2019, the 30-year brutal dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir and the toppling of his regime with the assistance of the two generals and their forces.
It was this courage that ensured that after the RSF and SAF had killed more than 120 protesters, peaceful activism forced them to accept a civilian-led transitional government under prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, tasked with taking the country to free elections.
The two generals conspired in October 2021 to overthrow the prime minister, taking over the running of the country. However, the courage of the Sudanese people again came to the fore, making it impossible for the military leaders to claim any legitimacy.
Burhan is the face of the imprisoned Bashir’s corrupt network of business and military interests, dubbed by the civilian opposition as the “deep state”. This network has Islamists, intelligence officers and military leaders at its core.
Dagalo’s hands drip with the blood of all those innocent lives taken in Darfur by the Janjaweed, the notorious Arab militia. Having successfully completed a campaign of burning, pillaging and massacre, they were formalised in 2013 by Bashir as the RSF. He stationed them in Khartoum as his personal protectors when civilian protests were increasing in tempo.
Writing in Foreign Affairs on April 27, Alex de Waal pointed out that Dagalo has been hiring out RSF members to fight in Yemen on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; in Libya to Gen Khalifa Haftar, head of the so-called Libyan National Army; and to Wagner, the Russian private military company affiliated with the Kremlin.
The Head & The Load is a powerful multimedia, multilinguistic, multitone work splayed out on a stage easily the breadth of a soccer field — resembling the carnage-strewn fields of a battle site.
The genius of Kentridge, together with the music of Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi, and Gregory Maqoma’s choreography, create an immersive experience that brings home the horrors, the unspeakable irrationality and the inhumanity of imperial powers which, while needing African soldiers and porters in the World War 1, cared little for their wellbeing, depriving them of food, water and shelter.
As we watch the other drama, the one being played out on our television screens, we are reminded of the sheer futility of war. We have to ask ourselves what today’s foreign forces, circling vulture-like over the killing fields of Khartoum, are hoping for if their dog in the fight were to win.
Sudan matters to many other states. Its location on the Red Sea, in the Horn of Africa and as the carrier of the Blue and White Nile rivers, makes it critical to countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have not hesitated in supporting the past military regime and one or other of the competing military forces.
According to Turkey-based Sudanese political scientist Mayada Kamal Eldeen, “Sudan’s ports and military bases have caused competition between the US and Russia. Turkish officials often refer to Sudan as ‘our gateway to Africa'.” She points to its vast arable land, freshwater resources as well as mineral wealth, including gold, which makes this country so attractive.
But Sudan should matter not for geopolitical reasons but because of its people, who have proven their commitment to peace and democracy over and over again.
• Abba Omar is director of operations at the Mapungubwe Institute.
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